Level 2 Lesson 22 / to like / 좋다 vs 좋아하다

안녕하세요, 여러분! What are some things that you like? What are some thing that you don’t like? Talking about what you like or love is one of the first things that you get to learn to do when learning a foreign language. Let us find out how to say that you like something in Korean. And if you already know the verb 좋다 [jo-ta], let us also find out what the difference between 좋다 and 좋아하다 is. Be sure to pick up the free PDF and leave us comments! We love you all!

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Actually, this is really helpful because I’ve heard both “좋다” and “좋아해요” in dramas, and wondered why sometimes it was translated as “good” and sometimes as “I like…”. I had to read this lesson a few times to grasp the subtle nuances, let’s see if I understand this:

I’m still a bit confused by 싫다 [sil-ta] and 싫어하다 [si-reo-ha-da], I’ve heard both those in dramas translated as “don’t like/don’t want to/hate” (and I’m not sure why) but I’ll tackle that another day. 🙂

so the difference between those descriptive words is that the “normal” form is basically just an adjective and rather passive, like “likable” or “sad” (as in the movie is sad for people who watch it, but the movie itself doesn’t feel sadness) and the 하다 forms are verbs and therefore rather active, as in “to like” or “to be sad” (as in to a person feels sad e.g. bc he/she watched a sad (슬프다) movie). Is that right?

방탄 소년단을 아주 좋아해요. TTMIK 좋아요!

고마워~~ ♥

Sangmi

친구이랑 가족 좋아해요. I like my friends and family. 내가 친구가 도시에 마나는 것 좋아해요. My friends like meeting in the city. 친구가 이름 선미 있어요 그리고 노무 예뻐요, 그래서 사람이 선미를 예쁘해요. My friends’ name is Sunmi and she is very pretty, therefore people treat her as such.